Spitfire is mourning the loss of our friend and ally, Brandi Collins-Dexter. In this work for justice, she was a powerhouse — part philosopher, part organizer, all badass. Brandi was a media analyst and a connoisseur of pop culture, and her academic research on how media justice sits at the center of justice in all its forms influenced an entire field of activism and advocacy.

In the midst of the pandemic, when Spitfire produced “Keep Me Posted,” a limited podcast series on tech, justice and democracy, Brandi was one of our first guests. In an episode published less than one month after the white nationalist insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, Brandi detailed how, for centuries, political ideas and values that do not center white men have been deliberately pushed to the background in our collective consciousness. 

“Groups that are on the margins and who are often unheard in the mainstream are always racing to find that new technology, particularly communications technology, that’s going to either create, find or hack that technology as a means to mobilize and create a new normal,” Brandi noted. “And then you always have the kind of status quo finding a way to crash in and restrict that and ensure that those who are operating to find a voice are pushed out again.”

Spitfire is honored to have supported Brandi during the release and promotion of her brilliant and prophetic book, “Black Skinhead: Reflections on Blackness and Our Political Future,” and to have partnered closely with her as part of the Disinfo Defense League (DDL). 

Below is our tribute, in partnership with the DDL, to the inspiring, incomparable and irreplaceable Brandi.

— Nima Shirazi

*****

KEEPING BRANDI’S LEGACY ALIVE

July 18, 2025

We write to this community with the heaviest of hearts. As you may have heard by now, our comrade Brandi Collins-Dexter passed away on June 25, 2025. She was surrounded by family and loved ones.

Brandi’s impact on our community and our work is profound. She was a brilliant strategist, a leading tech and media justice advocate, a beautiful writer and a deft cultural critic. She was also a friend and mentor to so many of us. Indeed, the fight against disinformation, for a more just world, for media systems that support and illuminate rather than divide and destroy — everything we do has been deeply informed and strengthened by Brandi’s decades of dedication, organizing, advocacy, research and leadership. She championed us and challenged us. Brandi will forever be one of the giants upon whose shoulders we stand; her contributions are incalculable, her loss is immeasurable.

Touching remembrances of Brandi are being shared across the tech and media justice field. We urge you to read them and reflect on Brandi’s life and work. From MediaJustice to Color of Change, Harvard’s Shorenstein Center to Media Democracy Fund, her native Chicago to Madison, London and Oakland to her adoptive home Baltimore, Brandi was an explorer with deep roots, a traveler in both mind and body. She was always learning and teaching, arguing and organizing, battling and winning. The victories she led for accountability — deplatforming and defunding abusers, racists and hate groups — are legion. When she was named as one of The Hill’s “People to Watch in Tech” and then in The Root 100, an annual list of the most influential Black Americans, it felt like the rest of the world was finally waking up to what we already knew.

Brandi was just as comfortable being professorial as she was playful. She could seamlessly pivot from citing polling data to recounting the history of British working class subculture to explaining the poignancy of professional wrestling storylines to make her point. Her approach to fighting injustice was just as much gloves-off as it was arms open. Brandi always brought the receipts. Her research was visionary, her writing prophetic. Especially prescient was her acclaimed 2022 book, “Black Skinhead: Reflections on Blackness and Our Political Future,” which articulated and analyzed the brittle relationship between Black voters and the Democratic party. In the book, Brandi intricately wove together threads of her personal life, Black politics and pop culture to tell the story of our current moment and where we can choose to go next as a society. In an interview with Tech Policy Press, two years before the 2024 election, Brandi worried about a nightmare scenario where the United States became “a place where essential government services are turned over to Silicon Valley wiz kids and managed by a consultant class charged with delivering basic needs.”

The Disinfo Defense League owes so much to Brandi. She keynoted our events and was an integral member of our Narrative Council. Her unapologetic hell-raising was always coupled with an emphasis on healing. She cared about the wellbeing of her family, her friends, her various communities and about people she didn’t know and would never meet. She cared about the biggest conundrums and our smallest selves. As she wrote in “Black Skinhead”:

This is what I think we need to get to: the real work of healing ourselves in the midst of pushing back against all the systems that seek to destroy us. And there are many systems seeking to destroy us. But how do we get the twenty-second century in our vision while also accounting for the fights that envelop us right now? How do we find safety even though we live in a world where we’re never truly safe? How do we find safety if even our bodies remember generations of instilled horror?

This is a hard time — in the world and in this work —  and it is all the more crucial for us to keep Brandi’s legacy alive by continuing to defend communities of color from industries and systems that prey on them and steal their power and agency.

Our thoughts and hearts are with her family as we send them strength and share gratitude for her brilliance, passion and humor. 

Rest in peace and power, Brandi. We will never stop thanking you and never stop missing you. 

In solidarity,

Spitfire Strategies and Disinfo Defense League